Originally Posted by
framer
Im not saying it’s a bad idea, but just be careful you’re not falling into a common trap of having your head down explaining what you want done in the FMC to the PM who isn’t expecting a long series of FMC entries and hasn’t given this technique any thought previously, all while you’re at a busy airport at 6000ft. A lot of RA’s occur with SID’s only having 1000ft clearance from the inbound STAR’s.
I can easily imagine the ‘voila’ being more like a
PF - cool ok put the center fix in the fix page please
PM - ah ok what?CF 17R?
PF- yeah CF17R
( both of you looking at the FMC as the PM scrolls through to Fix page four)
PM- there it is
PF - select abeam please
PM - there it is
PF- ok now take that to the legs page please
PM - just select it?
PF- yeah select it and put it at the top
( no profile calculations are being run while this is happening and intermittently both pilots are looking at the FMC with nobody looking outside)
PM- that’s at the top
PF- Get rid of the disco please
PM- There it is, joins the CF
PF- Yip that’s it excecute
PM- excecute
PF- LNAV
PF- ahhh we’re 400ft high gear down
It’s very easy to draw both pilots attention inside the aircraft with the FMC in situations where the PF should really being looking out the window and making simple MCP adjustments.
Its debatable to me whether that’s a safer operation with lower mental workload than configuring conservatively while looking out the window.
The way you are actively looking to increase your knowledge is admirable, just pointing out that FMC manipulation is not always good airmanship.
Cheers
thanks for that. thats exactly what i'm trying to avoid by getting an explanation of the FMC logic, to avoid button-hungry FOs messing about in the FMC trying random things.